Sunday, 31 May 2009

To get a kid a stimulus-funded summer job at one Bay State agency, he or she has to be pregnant, a dropout, homeless, an immigrant, an “offender” or at least “court-involved,” etc.

If against all odds you’ve raised an upstanding young citizen, here’s my advice: Phony up some charges to fill the “court-involved” box, then have the witnesses recollect things differently when the case comes to court, after the job’s been secured. Easier than pregnancy, I would bet.

The doctrine of “incorporaton” is what requires state and local governments to recognize the rights guaranteed citizens in the Bill of Rights. Guess who doesn’t want to apply the doctrine to firearms rights?

The recent landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller put an end to decades of arguments regarding the meaning of the Second Amendment. In a 5-4 decision, SCOTUS rejected the collectivist interpretation favored by gun control advocates such as President Obama, noting that the Second Amendment’s protection of the right of citizens to own firearms for private use is an individual right that predates the Constitution, with its authority tied directly to the natural right of self-defense.

Just six months after Heller, however, Sotomayor issued an opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo that the protections of the Second Amendment do not apply to the states, and that if your city or state wants to ban all guns, then they have the right to disarm you. Such an opinion seems to fly directly in the face of Heller, exposing Sotomayor as an anti-gun radical who will affirm full-on gun prohibitions and believes that you have no right to own a firearm, even for the most basic right of defending your family in your own home.

For a judicial activist like Senora Sonia to restrict the application of the left’s favorite doctrine suggests a bias. (Via InstaPundit.)

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama landed in New York Saturday afternoon, and after taking a helicopter from JFK into Manhattan, drove up the West Side Highway, where the northbound lanes were shut down by police for their visit, past Ground Zero, into the Village for dinner at the Village’s Blue Hill restaurant. From there, they went north to Times Square, where they went to to see a production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Belasco Theater on West 44 Street.

Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest read a statement from Obama: “I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished.”

Ed Morrissey touches on the sensitive subjects regarding Obambi’s using a “Gulfstream” (likely a C-37) vs. a VC-25 (Boeing 747) for his hop to the Big Apple:

Why use Gulfstream planes at all? Why not just use Air Force One, which would likely have kept at least one of the other planes on the ground, instead? Perhaps the White House wanted to emphasize the non-official nature of the visit; I suspect they didn’t want AF1 to return to New York City’s skies so soon after the Scare Force One fiasco. However, AF1 is built to keep the President in close touch with the government in times of crisis. It exists for precisely that reason, and is meticulously maintained to ensure the safest possible flight.

It isn’t primarily a question of “maintenance”—I’m sure the C-37 got lots of pre-flight attention—but of systems. The VC-25 may have some defensive systems the C-37 lacks. New York cops shut down some wannabe jihadists seeking to make shoulder-fired SAM attacks just weeks ago. Don’t think they’re the last who will try that. Also, the VC-25 can be air refueled—a capability Obambi’s predecessor used on 9/11. The Commander-in-Chief is always on alert. Someone ought to tell the incumbent.

The shooting death of late-term abortionist George Tiller was denounced by the anti-abortion group that opposed him and the Kansas attorney general who prosecuted him. Late-term fetuses, however, could not be reached for comment. (Via Drudge.)

Saturday, 30 May 2009

Charles Krauthammer left many of us scratching our heads with this take on Senora Sonia, and particularly on the Ricci case:

What should a principled conservative do? Use the upcoming hearings not to deny her the seat, but to illuminate her views. No magazine gossip from anonymous court clerks. No “temperament” insinuations. Nothing ad hominem. The argument should be elevated, respectful and entirely about judicial philosophy.

On the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats’ enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.

Sotomayor shares President Obama’s vision of empathy as lying at the heart of judicial decision-making -- sympathetic concern for litigants’ background and current circumstances, and for how any judicial decision would affect their lives.

Since the 2008 election, people have been asking what conservatism stands for. Well, if nothing else, it stands unequivocally against justice as empathy -- and unequivocally for the principle of blind justice.

[...]

Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds -- consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama -- that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party. Elections have consequences.

One of the great things about blogging is the ability to link to someone who has already said exactly what is on your mind. I was preparing a response to Krauthammer, but Andrew McCarthy beat me to it:

The emphasis on “solely” is in the original, and it puzzles me all the more. The only reason to confirm her is that a president is entitled to deference on court picks? And what on earth does the “mainstream views of the winning party” have to do with it?

[...]

And in any event, assuming you could figure out what the proper mainstream is, why should it make a difference when we are picking a judge? A Supreme Court justice is supposed to apply the law, not reflect the political sentiments of some popular majority. Let’s say Congress enacts a law that is bad but constitutional. Most people would probably not want the law to be given effect, but the judge’s job is to validate even the stupid laws — even the laws the judge herself does not like — as long as they don’t run afoul of the Constitution. Whether such a decision is popular or representative of mainstream views is irrelevant: If the mainstream wants, it can change the law small-d democratically.

If every senator followed Dr. K’s advice, no tally would distinguish bad from good judicial candidates. Even the bad ones would get their lifetime appointments on a 100-0 senate confirmation vote, thus encouraging the selection of more bad candidates. What is wrong with voting against a candidate you do not believe should get the job — even if you know, based on the senate numbers, that the bad candidate is going to be confirmed regardless of your vote?

If Charles’s point were that the president is entitled to an up-or-down vote on his judicial nominees, and that Republicans should not use filibusters and other senate privileges to block nominees like Democrats did to Bush (and like Republicans, to a lesser extent, did to Clinton), that would be a perfectly respectable position. In fact, as I’ve argued, I think it’s the sound constitutional position though I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament, either. (For now, the tension between those positions is academic since the numbers to support a filibuster are not there.) But, at most, the senate owes the president only to have a confirmation vote, not to win a confirmation vote.

I’m with McCarthy. Senators are not required to join the “mainstream.” Indeed, they define its boundaries by their votes. Senora Sonia has been exposed as a biased judge and she need not be elevated. Let her squeak through with the votes of Dem hacks and tar them with those votes when they face the electorate again ... and every GOP senator who votes for her confirmation should get challenged in a primary.

The FBI and Justice Department plan to significantly expand their role in global counter-terrorism operations, part of a U.S. policy shift that will replace a CIA-dominated system of clandestine detentions and interrogations with one built around transparent investigations and prosecutions.

Under the “global justice” initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.

Though the initiative is a work in progress, some senior counter-terrorism officials and administration policy-makers envision it as key to the national security strategy President Obama laid out last week — one that presumes most accused terrorists have the right to contest the charges against them in a “legitimate” setting.

The approach effectively reverses a mainstay of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism, in which global counter-terrorism was treated primarily as an intelligence and military problem, not a law enforcement one. That policy led to the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; harsh interrogations; and detentions without trials.